Back With a Capital Vengence!

This was the 3rd year of the Dugway Isolation Run and I've wanted to do it the last 2 years, but I'm always injured. The fact that you get to run on normally not open to the public trails with risk of exposions and you have to undergo a background check to get to the starting line are just a few of the reasons that drew me to the race! 

I think it was Andrea that asked me if I had even run 18 miles in the last week and when I thought about it I hadn't even run 18 miles in the last 2 weeks so when I found out that the 30K I registered for was going to run closer to 21 miles I panicked. My everything had been hurting the last 3 weeks and the idea of 20 miles made me want to roll around in Dugway's anthrax farm.

Oh well after the most incredible desert sunrise, the signing of the unexploded notice, and the race director's lengthy course description which I should have listened to since it would have saved me about a mile when I went off course - we were off. I ran the first couple of miles with a group of 5 guys listening to them talk about that guy that went off like a gazelle and was at least a mile ahead the first mile i.e. Fritz. I fell back to take some photos and I felt so lucky to be able to run over these hills. The views were amazing at dawn and there were signs posted all over the course pointing out rock features and odditites like the Alien Take-Off, the Drone Zone, Quicksand, Scorpion Tail, and Stonehenge. 

The trail was mostly single-track and shallow sand with very few technical spots. My left leg was super tight the first 5 miles, but I seemed to work out the funk and transfer all the discomfort to my right hip flexor which is more familiar and tolerable. Pretty psyched that I could run 20+ miles on not a lot of "training" and I actually negative split which is pretty neat since it got hot! I listened to tunes the 2nd lap and was able to hit the downhills a little harder since I had worked out some bodily funk.

We hung out at the end of the race and I drank about a gallon of water and made my own pizza to grill (what a great idea!) and had hilarious converations with some Dugway residents that ran their first ever trail race - I think they are hooked!

This race had more schwag then any other race I have ever attended! The finisher medals were beautiful with wildhorses on them and nearly everyone got an award with some sort of animal skull and rocks on them and a raffle prize. The race bag had all sorts of goodies like a tiny race cup to reduce waste, KT tape, mutiple tubes of bug repellent, a nifty GSI lightweight flask that I love, a Sea World San Diego watter bottle (wtf?), a blank envelope filled with some unidentifable white powder, and a ton of other things.

I absolutely loved this event and am sad that more people didn't participate. I'm going to make it my mission to drag a ton of people out there next year!

 

Secret deserts.

A photo posted by Amiee Maxwell (@amieemaxwell) on Oct 24, 2015 at 3:13pm PDT